Though the police did not know, Rightist media pundits claimed to know. There were refugee camps in Friesland province. Johnny Foreigner must have been Marianne’s rapist and murderer, the xenophobes claimed.

First, there was talk about a refugee from Yugoslavia. Conveniently, at the time when NATO bombed Yugoslavia. Later it was suggested the rapist and murderer was an Iraqi refugee (by, eg, the Katholiek Nieuwsblad, a weekly representing the far Right wing of the Roman Catholic church). Or an asylum seeker from Afghanistan. Again, countries in which the Netherlands, being part of the NATO alliance, participated in wars. The murderer-rapist was non-white. The murderer-rapist was a Muslim, the bigots screamed. The police supposedly had not arrested murderous Johnny Foreigner because of anti-racist “political correctness”.